Peter Rhodes on depressions, tinkering and improving the weather
If there is one thing politicians simply cannot resist, it is the compulsion to tinker, pointlessly sticking their noses into every aspect of our lives – with us picking up the bill.
Consider Whitehall's plan, announced this week, of making grants of up to £3,750 to reduce the price of electric cars costing up to £37,000. The money to fund such generosity will come, of course, from other taxpayers, many of whom can't afford any sort of car, let alone a new one.
This is robbing the poor to treat the rich, and the founders of the Labour Party must be turning in their graves. Along with Robin Hood.
Cometh the drought, cometh the soothsayer. Energy Secretary and net-zero zealot Ed Miliband says this week's report on UK long-term climate change is “a stark warning" to take action on climate and nature, declaring: “Our British way of life is under threat.”
Well, maybe it is. But when was the traditional British weather anything to rejoice about? Twenty years ago, if you'd asked the average Brit how these islands might be improved, he'd probably have suggested a little more warmth, rather less snow and the occasional Spanish-type heatwave. That is precisely what 300 years of industrialisation and climate change is now delivering, and Joe Public is still bellyaching about the weather. There really is no pleasing some people.
Incidentally, did you hear Miliband make a fleeting claim that his clean, green agenda was creating “a path to lower bills?” I suspect that a path to lower bills is not to be confused with lower bills. Indeed, I bet it actually means higher bills. Time, and the relentless grinding of the smart meters. will tell.
In yesterday's column, I carelessly used the phrase “this endless drought.” It is always better to avoid such provocative terms, especially when a big, wet depression is barrelling in from the Atlantic. After you with that bucket.
A reader write to say he assumes when the Bayeux Tapestry comes to the UK next year, the British authorities will protect it from the slashers, smashers and paint chuckers of the anti-everything tendency. Relax, sir. I feel sure that when it comes to protecting the tapestry, the British Museum will be every bit as safe as, er, the National Gallery.
